


waiting and wanting

by starlightwalking



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, Mutual Pining, no capital letters we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 13:54:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19378051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlightwalking/pseuds/starlightwalking
Summary: with lup, his love is way more obvious - to him at least, and pretty much everyone else too if he's being honest with himself. he's madly in love with her; he's known that for…to be honest, it's hard to remember a time when hewasn't. he is passionately, sappily, ridiculously in love.





	waiting and wanting

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in the middle of the night, intending it to be a couple paragraphs about taako and barry's friendship, but then it turned into blupjeans and tbh i'm not complaining! i will write about taako and barry another day, for now, enjoy some mutual pining so intensely sincere that it makes me feel a little ill (that might have something to do with the romance repulsion but also they're just so fucking SWEET)

it's funny - here he is, this absolutely average man, not only intricately tied up in the lives of not only six other brilliant interplanetary explorers, but especially the lives of the insanely gorgeous, insanely talented, insanely wonderful elf twins. of everyone,  _they_  are the ones he's closest with.

it took him a while to realize it, but taako is his  _best fucking friend_ , and not only that, he is  _taako's_  best fucking friend. i mean, comparing the intensity of everyone's friendships is pointless, really, and nothing can surpass the bond between the twins, but he can confide  _anything_  in taako. even the stuff he isn't ready to tell lup.

with lup, his love is way more obvious - to him at least, and pretty much everyone else too if he's being honest with himself. he's madly in love with her; he's known that for…to be honest, it's hard to remember a time when he  _wasn't_. he is passionately, sappily, ridiculously in love. what once was a crush on a girl way out of his league has developed with time and proximity into something consuming, defining, intoxicating that he can no longer separate from himself. that scares him, sometimes, but only a little bit, because how can it be bad if it's  _love_  for  _her_?

he's so fucking lucky that she seems to care for him too. well. "seems" is…not quite the right word. a dozen cycles ago, still starstruck and wallowing in self-doubt, he'd been astonished to think that she even thought him -  _him_! - a close friend. that was the best thing he could possibly have imagined. but now…they  _were_  friends. he was more confident in himself, in his abilities - even when the old insecurities crept up, which they inevitably would - he knew deep down that he was worthy of this kind of love and that the crew - his family - loved him as deeply and strongly as he loved them, and that he and they all  _deserved_  it.

it took longer than he'd liked to accept that he loved just as much as they did. the others were more open with affection. magnus was a man built for love; merle wore his heart on his sleeve; lucretia  _tried_  to hide her feelings but wasn't very good at it and knew it; davenport proved his love and care for them with every action, even if he didn't often say it outright. lup was a firebomb in every way, showering you with compliments as often as she did sparks, and she could see the best in everyone. taako's sincere moments were few and far between but  _gods_  were they powerful when they came.

he was awkward with it - but he felt it too. and now he was more certain of it, especially with lup.

he's had so many meaningful moments with her. times where it was just the two of them, engrossed in research; times where they would both laugh until it hurt to even wheeze out another chuckle but it hurt just as much to stop; times where even in a crowd he could catch her eye and feel grounded; times where it was all seven of them exhausted after a mission and curled up in a pile but somehow they ended tangled up together, hands never quite touching even when there was so little else between them.

he was in love with her. it was the most obvious thing in the world - the planar system - every single fucking plane they'd been on. she knew it. he knew she knew it.

and  _she was in love with him too._

that's what made him so overwhelmed - that she loved him as much as he loved her. they'd never talked about it, but the way her gaze would linger on him during a relaxing day at the beach and the way she caught her breath whenever they almost grasped hands and the way she listened to everything he had to say as if he were the most brilliant man alive and the way she smiled so tenderly at him for no goddamn reason at all...he knew what that meant, because he did the same things. he felt the same way.

they were in love. mutually pining after each other, mutually aware of their desire and vulnerability. and that fucking terrified the both of them.

one day he knew they'd have to talk about it. and after that - things would be  _so fucking good_. just daydreaming about it, sometimes while she was right there leaning her head on his shoulder and he knew she was daydreaming about it too... things unspoken passed between them, and sometimes barry just wanted to fastforward to the part where they kissed and cried and fucked and exchanged vows and never left each other's sides, at least not in spirit.

one day they'd have to confront it. but that wasn't now, and there was a paralyzing anxiety that stopped him from sweeping her up in his arms right then and getting it all over with. because before the bliss would have to be the  _conversation_  where they talked, like rational adults, about what this meant and where they were going and if her being trans complicated anything and how feasible it was because he was a human and she was an elf and this cycle of pseudo-immortality couldn't go on forever and besides were they too caught up in saving the world for this to work and what if they decided, even despite all their feelings, that it was a bad idea?

 _that's_  what he feared. it's what stopped him, and what stopped her. at least, that's what he  _thought_. what scared him even more was the possibility that she was thinking something different and he couldn't even tell.

but then she'd give him that burning look again and he'd turn red because god,  _she_ thought  _he_ was the sexy one and it was all he could do to stop himself running to his room and jacking off right then and there, but god it would be so much better with  _her_  -

so he kept his longing glances brief, his whispers confined to the darkness of his empty room. someday soon their orbits would intersect, and the collision would outshine the sun, one way or another.

but someday soon wasn't now. so for now, barry bluejeans and lup waited...and wanted.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading and commenting!  
> You can find me on tumblr at my taz sideblog [@aroburnsides](http://aroburnsides.tumblr.com) or on my main [@arofili](http://arofili.tumblr.com). (At time of posting my url is actually @aroziraphale but that's temporary, lol, and I've got a redirect page up.)


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